Football Manager is an odd cultural duckling. Its nerdy, number-heavy presentation holds it back from the ooh-it's-like-a-film mainstream acceptance of Call of Duty, et al. Meanwhile, its being about football stops it from being embraced with the same open arms as, say, EVE Online, despite it inspiring similar levels of passionate brain-crazy among its far larger audience. Its far less talked about than its vast…

Oldboy is a pretty great film. No spoilers, but I like the scene in which the main character, after years of private practice, first confronts a group of street toughs. "Can 10 years' worth of imaginary training... be put to use?" Apparently it can. Hopeful players of Football Manager have been wondering for a long time whether their expertise would convert to the real world,…

Sports Interactive and Sega have announced Football Manager 2015 is being made. It's going to be released in November. They've also launched a free service called inSIder, which you can sign up to in order to get information about what Sports Interactive are doing. There is no information on what new features are going to be in this new Football Manager though, as announcement of…

FOOTBALL. It's been on your telly for the last few weeks and it's staying there for a few weeks more. FOOTBALL. Every supermarket is full of products adorned with the looming faces of men who kick balls for a living. FOOTBALL. It's only gone and found its way onto RPS as well. The World Cup comes but once every four years and it's a time…

Last week I uninstalled Football Manager 2014. It wasn't for the first time. The problem with Sports Interactive's foot-to-ball games are well documented, but 2014 is the first in the series in over ten years to get its cleats into me. It got to the point that I wasn't being productive in other projects anymore. It got to the point that I wasn't playing other…

As we enter the second part of a marathon conversation with Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson, I begin by checking that the half time oranges have done the trick. Once we're both warmed up and ready to go, talk turns to Football Manager's place in the wider world of games and Miles' background in the world of music. When we're not discussing Jesus Jones and Blur,…

Football Manager is an enormously complex simulation. On a global level, the game tracks thousands of careers, ambitions and relationships, and on any given match day, weather, morale, skills and individual personal issues can contribute to moments of brilliance or abject failure. Talking to Sports Interactive's director Miles Jacobson, I found that the simulation model is even more elaborate in some areas than I'd expected.…

Football never stops. At this very moment, as you're reading these words, people are playing football all over the world and every kick of the ball massively matters to someone. Presumably. Perhaps the football is happening too far away for you to see though, or perhaps you'd like to have more control over the actions of the men playing with the football. If that is…

Have there ever been two foot-to-ball posts on RPS during a single twenty four hour period? I'd go back and search through the archives but I can hear Kenneth Baubles, the ill-fated librarian, dragging his pegleg around back there. Best not to disturb him. Whatever the case, we're almost back-to-back with balls today. First it was Graham's turn to give FIFA a good kicking, although…

You can't make this stuff up. Well, I mean, I suppose it's technically possible. I could tell you, right now, that the puck from Ricochet will be getting its own talk show on Adult Swim this fall. But is it really that much more preposterous than a Football Manager (no, not player) plying some variety of ball-based voodoo magic in Sonic And All Stars Racing: Transformed?…

As a retired don in the great university of the bedroom, I wasn't expecting to be aroused by Professor Rossignol. Later, I was also disturbed when he woke me up, demanding that I spout some waffle on the importance of some games none of the current faculty really felt able to talk about with confidence. Of course, with my famous arrogance, I felt confident to…

It's been RPS' best-ever day for pictures of football games on the front-page! Nonetheless, you may have observed subtle clues over the years that this website's staff are just a little bit shy of football nous. Subtle, subtle clues. This does not mean we sneer at those who do have said nous, or indeed at games based upon it. No! We revere them as much…

Update: As mentioned below, IGN have since removed the review, and replaced it with an apology. I'm not a fan of watching football. It's true to say I'd rather spend the afternoon glueing broken glass, rusting shards of pipe, twisted scraps of rebar and smallpox-laced barbed wire all over my front garden, then bellyflop onto the impromptu sculpture from the roof of my house. So…

Sitting in a darkened room in a distant country, in a place which seems to have taken pleasure in ignoring my need for tea, the news that there's a demo out for the latest version of that most British of games, Football Manager, pleases me. Specifically, Football Manager 2009. It allows you to play a half season of the game to get a handle on…

Times change. They have to, as otherwise watchmakers go out of business. Sega have moved from beloved purveyor of bright skies, hedgehogs and underperforming consoles to beloved purveyor of bright skies, hedgehogs and heavyweight PC games. And the world's a better place for it, or at least for us, which is all that counts. Go self-interest! Anyway, over the last few days they've released a…